Month: August 2023

How To Blow Up A Pipeline is an eco-thriller designed to disrupt people’s way of thinking: Melbourne International Film Festival Review

An eco-terrorism thriller where the bombers are the good guys, Daniel Goldhaber‘s How To Blow Up A Pipeline is structured as if it’s playing to a heist movie temperament, but it’s layered with a topical, current commentary that lends the film a young freshness; very much a movie of the “now”. Relying on ideas realised…

Read More

Live Review: Katy Steele rocks The Workers Club, Melbourne to a packed crowd (04.08.23)

Last Friday, 4th of August, The Workers Club hosted the cult following of the captivating Katy Steele, formerly of the ARIA nominated band Little Birdy. The West Australian pop singer who is currently touring her latest album Big Star (2023) was supported by the duo Moreton. Katy definitely has a loyal following here in Melbourne….

Read More

The 2023 Harvest Rock lineup is HERE! Tickets on sale Wednesday 9 August

Following on from last year’s inaugural Harvest Rock Festival in Adelaide, which saw the likes of Jack White, Angus and Julia Stone and The Black Crowes play over two days, this year’s headliners have just been announced. Get your dancing shoes ready for Jamiroquai and Beck in exclusive Australian performances as well as the funk…

Read More

Young Henrys unveil their new Brewers B-Side ‘Phantasmic Mr Hops’ Experimental IPA

Young Henrys Brewery in Newtown are no strangers to pushing the beer flavour envelope. Their latest offering, the “Phantasmic Mr Hops” IPA beer is inspired by the Wes Anderson movie, “Fantastic Mr Fox.” Phantasmic Mr Hops is a 7% experimental IPA utilising an innovative new flavour-producing compound named Phantasm. Phantasm is a powder derived from New…

Read More

Sweet Relief! POOF DOOF Pride Patrol and Dress Up Contest coming to Brisbane

Brisbane’s newest one-day party, Sweet Relief! is a new event taking place at Maritime Green, Northshore on September 16. Headline Dj sets from Groove Armada and The Avalanches will keep the energy levels high. As if that’s not enough, there will also be performances from Latifa Tee, Nina Las Vegas, Cut Copy, YO! Mafia and Ladyhawke….

Read More

Theatre review: Bernadette Robinson mesmerises with star performances in Divas

Directed by Simon Phillips, Divas is a captivating journey through time, exploring the (often quite short) lives of the biggest music stars to ever grace stage and screen. There are ten, in fact, each with their own unique personality, connection to music, and outlook on life and love. Unbelievably, there is one star who brings…

Read More

Photo Gallery: Inspiral Carpets – Manning Bar, Sydney (04.08.23)

English Madchester scene legends Inspiral Carpets returned to tour Australia after reforming in 2022. A packed Manning bar, mostly of English ex pats danced and sang along to the Inspiral Carpets songs lead by original keyboardist Clint Boon with his classic 60s garage punk sounds and original lead singer Stephen Holt belting out their songs….

Read More

Past Lives is a graceful, masterful navigation through one’s own emotional outlay: Melbourne International Film Festival

Despite the simple premise of Celine Song‘s Past Lives and its romantic comedy connotations, the film is anything but.  Burning slow and composing its emotions until it knows when to release them in a flood of responsive passion, Song’s impeccable debut is a drama of humanism and quiet complexity. Set over the span of 24…

Read More

Life Instyle Melbourne takes over the Royal Exhibition Building this weekend

If you love boutique shopping and you are in Melbourne this weekend, the Life Instyle expo is here to fill your bags with a carefully curated collection of brands from Australia and overseas. Taking over the Royal Exhibition Building, the show floor offers 355 brands for you to browse and shop, including opportunities to meet…

Read More

Series Review: Heartstopper Season 2 continues to represent minority groups on television

Heartstopper Season 2 continues to explore the importance of representation. Not only in the LGBTQIA+ community, but through families, relationships, friendships, and abilities. The heartfelt romantic tv drama series aired on Netflix on the 3rd of August, produced by See-Saw Productions, written by Alice Oseman, and directed by Euros Lyn.  Based on Oseman’s webcomic and…

Read More
Fractal Noise

Book Review: Delve into the existential dread of sci-fi horror in Christopher Paolini’s Fractal Noise

Best known for his fantasy series The Inheritance Cycle, author Christopher Paolini first delved into science fiction with his award-winning 2020 novel To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. This new novel, Fractal Noise, serves as a prequel and shows the horrifying events behind the scenes. When a team of scientists and astronauts scouting out…

Read More

Late Night With the Devil is a healthy twist on the “found footage” subsect of horror: Melbourne International Film Festival Review

“Before we continue I’d like to apologize to anyone who might be upset or offended by what you saw before the break. It’s not every day you see a demonic possession on live television.” Not the most typical sentence you’d expect to hear from a late night host, but such is the statement made by…

Read More

Interview: Fanny Lumsden, fresh from Glastonbury, talks new album Hey Dawn, songwriting and family

Hey Dawn a new album by Fanny Lumsden is out this Friday, 4th of August. Hey Dawn is Fanny’s fourth album, following her award-winning release Fallow (2020). Fallow debuted at #10 on the all-genre ARIA charts and took out Best Country Album at the 2020 ARIA Awards. The album also secured five CMAA Golden Guitar…

Read More

New Music Discoveries 4th August: Carla Geneve, Molly Millington, Rin McArdle and more

As we roll into August, we’ve added 10 new tracks, including two exclusive premieres to our Discovery playlist on Spotify and Apple Music. Our track of the week is “Bills” from Perth’s Carla Geneve. “Bills” is the first track from Carla Geneve from her upcoming second album, HERTZ. The track is a wonderful blend of…

Read More

Tech Review: Shokz OpenFit headphones provide comfort and quality

For as long as Shokz has developed bone-conduction headphones, they’ve never really drawn me in. Maybe I was worried about the lack of audio quality, or even the overall comfortability of adjusting to these around my head during day-to-day activities. Enter the OpenFit headphones. Shokz has pivoted in a way, instead choosing to focus on…

Read More

Live Review: Windwaker + Caskets + alt. + Headwreck – The Brightside, Brisbane (27.07.23)

Melbourne alt-metal favourites Windwaker brought their Love in the Dark Tour to The Brightside in Brisbane last Thursday night, supported by Caskets, alt. and Headwreck. The sold-out fourth show on their six-date run proved them as one of the nation’s most exciting frontrunners in the next generation of heavy music. Opening the night soon after…

Read More

Interview: Amy McIntosh from Vilify talks latest single, tours and Newcastle’s heavy scene

Newcastle hardcore act Vilify have emerged as a force to be reckoned with since their debut EP Clarity in 2020. Featuring Amy McIntosh and Lizi Blanco of The Beautiful Monument, the quartet have come out swinging this year with blistering single “Take the Pill” and latest offering “From the Inside”. We caught up with Amy…

Read More

Aussie Indie Artists: Poppy Rose on music, muses, and her lost song

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. Singer/songwriter/producer Poppy Rose is a self taught artist who has gone from singing to Garageband in her bedroom…

Read More

Paul Tollett, Tan France and Cal Henderson join over 700 unmissable speakers at SXSW Sydney this October

The inaugural SXSW Sydney has just revealed an unmissable line-up of headline speakers. Initially an annual event in Austin Texas famous for launching the careers of the likes of Billie Eilish and Uber, this year the “festival of festivals” has been expanded to Sydney, and will comprise of 1000+ events, speakers and music acts. Coachella…

Read More

Book Review: Take a rock-and-rollercoaster ride through 1970s New York with Rachel Coad’s NEW YORK CITY Glow

It’s 1977, and Strawberry the glowing octopus (Stauroteuthis syrtensis) is finally out of jail. Hitching a ride with Ray, an insurance sales-snake searching for meaning in his life, she heads for New York City, where she eventually finds work at a little bar called CBGB. Centered around the New York City Blackout of 1977 and…

Read More

Ms. Lauryn Hill announces arena shows in both Sydney and Melbourne for October 2023

When Ms. Lauryn Hill was announced as the headliner for Gold Coast’s Promiseland festival in October, people were… confused. Nothing against the Gold Coast, of course, but such a big name coming to Australia to celebrate 25 years her seminal solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and just doing one show seemed a bit…

Read More

Film Review: Meg 2: The Trench is just shy of being shark bait thanks to a self awareness of its own stupidity

For a film that sold itself on the premise of action staple Jason Statham facing off against a giant, prehistoric shark – and grossed over $500 million globally in the process – it was a particular let-down that 2018’s The Meg had, well, very little of Statham v shark to speak of.  A creature feature…

Read More

First taste of SXSW Sydney Screen Festival aligns with the event’s themes of Music, Games and Tech & Innovation

With a spotlight on the Asia-Pacific region, but inclusive of all corners of the globe, the SXSW Sydney 2023 Screen Festival will bring together screen creatives to deliver an experience at the forefront of discovery, creativity and innovation.  With an aim to platform, showcase and support the most exciting new voices, new forms and new…

Read More
Sad Girl Novel

Book Review: Pip Finkemeyer’s Sad Girl Novel takes on a publishing-world trend from the inside

The sad girl novel is a relatively new concept in the book world, but it’s one that has fascinated readers since its invention. Hallmarked by novels such as Meg Mason‘s Sorrow and Bliss and often distinguished by cover images of women lying or leaning face-down, this new kind of book takes the classic ‘chick lit’ à la…

Read More
The Elsewheres

Exclusive EP Premiere: The Elsewheres – Run Away With Me (2023 EP)

Melbourne-based technicolour folk-rock group The Elsewheres are releasing their debut EP “Run Away With Me” this Thursday, 3 August. Here at The AU Review, we have the pleasure of premiering the soulful mix prior to its release! Run Away With Me boasts five heartfelt songs that touch on the realities of love, depression and defeat. The…

Read More

Film Review: River Wild reimagines the classic Meryl Streep thriller with a more violent, survivalist layering

Branding itself as a reimagining rather than a traditional remake – and this is one of those cases where that wording does actually tie into the overall mentality – River Wild takes the basic premise of Curtis Hanson’s 1994 thriller The River Wild, a Hitchcock-in-the-great-outdoors chiller that raised its own profile through the inclusion of…

Read More

Theatre Review: 2:22 A Ghost Story is a good, not great, slow-burn supernatural thriller

Do you believe in ghosts? Keep an open mind and uncover the truth in 2:22 A Ghost Story – a supernatural thriller play that’s transformed Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre into the innards of a potentially haunted house. Belief and skepticism clash when Jenny (Gemma Ward) senses a strange presence in her home, but her husband…

Read More

Adelaide Film Festival announces 2023 AFF EXPAND Lab and $100,000 EXPAND Moving Image Commission

Adelaide Film Festival (AFF) has announced the return of the AFF EXPAND Lab in Adelaide from 21 – 27 October 2023 and is now inviting Expressions of Interest from Australian creative practitioners to participate in the lab. AFF EXPAND Lab is a development initiative bringing together 30 Australian visual artists, filmmakers, video artists, writers, and…

Read More

Paul McCartney announces Australian stadium tour for late 2023

The Mac is back, with Paul McCartney announcing his first Australian tour since 2017. Making a six city visit featuring a variety of stadium shows across the country on his Got Back tour, the former Beatle and prolific frontman is set to arrive on our shores this October and November. Having continually wowed crowds over…

Read More

Film Review: Despite a dollop of Irish charm, The Miracle Club can’t overcome its own maudlin personality

Despite some satisfactory performances, a clear bout of good intentions, and a dollop of Irish charm, Thaddeus O’Sullivan‘s The Miracle Club can’t overcome its rather maudlin dialogue and sporadic meanness to earn a recommendation as the joyous Sunday afternoon viewing it so clearly wants to be. Set in 1967 in a small Irish village, the…

Read More